


Hi you, I'm me

by adjit



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aftermath of Reveal, F/M, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:07:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6069865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adjit/pseuds/adjit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hi you, I’m me.” Adrien blinks at her as Marinette hesitates, but he simply waits patiently for her to finish. “The concept of identity confuses me,” she continues, “but you do not confuse me."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <a href="https://ficbook.net/readfic/5226941">Russian</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hi you, I'm me

**Author's Note:**

> The phrase "Hi you, I'm me" attacked me while I was showering so I wrote a tiny little fic. Just me musing about certain things and then making Marinette say it for me. Aaaaas always.

It’s already been a _week_.

It’s only been a _week_.

One awkward, horrible, unending week that passed in the blink of an eye.

One week since the world shifted on its axis, and everything in Marinette’s life crumbled to the ground. Boundaries fell, secrets were exposed, and identities were revealed.

Adrien is Chat Noir.

She repeats the thought, and it still sticks somewhere in the back of her throat, uncomfortable and unwieldy. She tries it the other way.

Chat Noir is Adrien.

Unsurprisingly, that thought is just as awkward and clumsy as the last.

Marinette pushes the air out of her lungs in a frustrated huff. It’s already been a week, and she still can’t push the images she has of the two boys into a single person. And she has to reconcile the personalities soon, or she’s going to drive herself crazy with the atmosphere between the two of them. It’s only been a week, and she’s about to start ramming her head into the wall just to break the tension between the two of them.

Not that anyone has noticed. Marinette and Adrien were always awkward around each other. So no one noticed that whenever Adrien looks at Marinette now, he never meets her eyes. And if Marinette flinches instead of freezing up like normal when Adrien touches her, the line between the two reactions is blurry enough already.

And Ladybug and Chat Noir were still as in-sync in battle as ever. The akuma they had taken care of this week had more or less been defeated without a hitch. Their muscles still remembered the timing that countless battles together had drilled into them, and only the very observant would notice that they stood just an inch further apart than usual, that there was more hesitation in Ladybug’s eyes right after the fist bump and right before she swung away. And not every battle has room for playful banter, anyway.

But even if no one noticed, Marinette knows. Marinette sees and feels the heavy air and she wants to rip her hair out because this situation is hanging by a thread. She knows that it’s bound to snap, but before all the things that are up in the air plummet to the ground, she’s not sure if she wants to prepare for the fallout so she can avoid the debris or try to barrel towards where she wants to go. Her heart is leaning towards the latter, but her brain reminds her that she could so easily land wrong, breaking so much in the process.

 

After another battle absolutely filled with shrieking silence, Ladybug tells her brain to shut up and follows her heart. She doesn’t think it through, she hasn’t sorted her thoughts or emotions, she doesn’t have a plan, but she cannot take another second of waiting. It’s time for action. She lets Chat Noir’s fist meet an open palm, and she wraps his hand in hers before tugging. Her partner follows her insistent, silent command, and she doesn’t stop until they’re in a secluded spot, far away from prying eyes. She can feel the questioning aura emanating from her partner as she turns around, but she answers no questions. Instead, she just takes a deep breath, and starts to speak.

“Hi Chat Noir, I’m Ladybug.” She sticks her hand out, smiling pleasantly at the confused boy in front of her. He takes her hand and shakes it, tilting his head in confusion but playing along. A beep rings out between them, but neither pay it any attention. They can’t even tell who it’s coming from. It’s not like it matters now. “I’m a superhero who fights akuma. When I first met my partner, I think I fell a little bit in love, but his smile was too sure and his wit was too quick, so I thought he’d never be serious about me.”

Chat Noir opens his mouth to protest, but another beep distracts him long enough for Ladybug to plow on.

“But even if his flirtations weren’t serious, we clicked so well and fell so in line that I loved him anyway after a while. A different love, but still good. He was always that maybe, that what if…” A third beep interrupts her speech, but she doesn’t let it slow her down. “But I was saving myself for Adrien.”

Chat Noir gapes at Ladybug, but she doesn’t let him react as a pink glow strips away the suit to reveal Marinette Dupain Cheng with the exact same determined gleam in her eyes. Another beep has Chat Noir following suit, his transformation wearing off until he is standing in front of her as Adrien Agreste.

She sticks her hand out again. He stares at it as if it were a foreign object as she starts talking again, her hand still firmly outstretched. Marinette’s voice is slightly quieter than Ladybug’s, but it is still laced with the same strong undercurrent. “Hi Adrien, I’m Marinette.” Adrien finally takes her hand in his, and numbly thinks that she has a strong handshake as her speech, or performance, or whatever it is, continues as they drop hands. “I love designing, and I’m kind of a klutz. I’ve had a crush on the model Adrien Agreste since I first met him. At first, it was just a little crush, and then it was…. not so little. When I saw that not only was he jaw-droppingly gorgeous and multitalented but humble, respectful, and kind, it was so easy for me to fall.”

Adrien’s eyes grow larger as she talks, but despite the blush now dusting her cheeks, she sticks her hand out one more time. Adrien has caught on by now and he shakes her hand, wondering who she could possibly be introducing now.

“Hi you, I’m me.” He blinks at her as she hesitates, but he simply waits patiently for her to finish. “The concept of identity confuses me,” she continues, “but _you_ do not confuse me. You are loyal and dedicated, sometimes a little bit lonely, but always selfless and caring and so good sometimes it surprises me until I remember, of course, that’s who he is. And I don’t know who ‘he’ is or what he goes by, and I don’t care, because he is someone I know and love more than most things in this world and it doesn’t matter what he’s wearing because that is not who he is. And I refuse to keep going on in this way because if I lose you, I’ve lost a person who I admire and care about, and I don’t want that. So can we start over, forget about Marinette and Ladybug and Chat Noir and Adrien and just… be me and you?”

Adrien is staring at Marinette, starstruck, awestruck, thunderstruck, moonstruck, but he finally snaps out of it as Marinette offers her hand again, and he takes it without thinking. But this time, instead of shaking it, he slips his fingers between hers, intertwines their hands before pulling them up and ghosting his lips over her knuckles. He smiles as she both rolls her eyes and blushes, and he finally speaks.

“No. I don’t think we should just be you and me.” She raises an eyebrow as he drops their hands to their sides, not letting go, but the look on her face says that she’s still interested in seeing where he’s going with this. “Can we be us instead?” He squeezes her hand in his, and she returns the gesture.

“I think that can be arranged.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hm, I have a lot of other thoughts on this piece, but they're not quite ready to be put into words. Maybe I'll write more drabbles. We'll see.


End file.
